Raul Torrez and Zack Quintero

I voted for Raúl Torrez for NM Attorney-General.

Negativity is a turnoff. I’ve received a flood of slick, misleading mailers from Brian Colón’s side attacking Torrez, though none from Torrez. I hear both sides’ TV ads are vicious, Torrez saying Colón advocates defunding the police (an absurdity) and Colón hammering us with misleading statistics suggesting that Torrez, who seems quite competent, is a real Sad Sack as Bernalillo County District Attorney.

Torrez seems independent and real. I have serious questions about the way Colón and his pals (and other states’ AGs) take big bucks from big law firms, then hire those same firms to represent us, very profitably. It’s legal, but odiferous. Torrez isn’t part of that game. Colón is.

Big cases require big firms; and those firms should have expertise in the type of litigation involved. The attorney-general is like a corporation’s general counsel. S/he gives advice, does or oversees some legal tasks, and, in matters too large or specialized for the in-house legal staff, coordinates and generally directs the litigation counsel’s work. Imagine a corporate general counsel telling the CEO S/he’d selected the corporation’s lawyers for a big case because their law firm had given him/her money. That’d look strange to a CEO, and stranger still to a shareholder. General counsel has an ethical obligation to the corporation to pick the best available litigation firm for the particular lawsuit, subject perhaps to cost, geography, etc. Our Attorney-General owes that same duty to us.

These are reasonable questions to ask Brian Colón regarding his involvement in this pattern. Big out-of-state law firms donate big bucks to the AG politically, then reap bigger bucks in litigation fees. They probably do a good job. Would someone else have done better? We don’t know. It does seem odd that “the best firm” for us is so often the one that contributed to a certain campaign. As to Robles, Real, and Anaya, usually the local counsel these days, one might guess they are best firm in New Mexico; but New Mexico AGs didn’t use the firm once in the six years before Real’s law-school chum, Balderas, got elected AG. Maybe their rise was wholly unrelated to the friendship, or the firm’s political contributions. (Colón was also a pal of Real and Balderas. Balderas has just given Colón’s campaign $100,000 more.)

Colón says that’s just how it’s done, and he’ll continue. As to cozy-looking relationships with contributing law firms, Colón says Balderas and Gary King did it too. (Would he let his kid drink and drive because Joey’s dad let Joey drive drunk?)

Our water case against Texas is a “bet-the-state’s-future” case. Water law is a specialty. As usual, local counsel is Robles, Real. Name partner, Real, isn’t a water lawyer. He doesn’t have to be. But even in a case that could affect our state’s survival, should it be business-as-usual?

I also voted for Las Crucen Zack Quintero to succeed Colón as Auditor. He’s a young, dynamic Las Crucen with a plan and a passion to grapple with issues I care about, notably predatory guardianship (his grandfather was a victim) and health-care fraud. As our federal ombudsman, he’s had actual experience investigating such fraud. For years we’ve urged Colón to act on guardianship. Maybe Quintero will. We’ve long wished for a progressive southern New Mexican in such a state position. It’s been too long.

Maybe this year will bring some positive change yet.

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 [The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 5 June 2022, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and KRWG's website. A related radio commentary will air during the week on KRWG (90.7 FM) and be available on demand on KRWG’s site.]

[Predatory guardianship is a real problem, here and elsewhere, as I've discussed in earlier columns.  People here were disappointed by Colón in that regard; and although some of what they wanted him to do was not within his power, I’m looking forward to Quintero taking a shot at it.  More generally, Zack seems a sharp young guy who brings to the job a law degree and the right kind of investigatory experience.] 

[I mentioned last week why, with all due respect to her primary opponent, I think we should renominate Kim Stewart for Sheriff. I noticed Frietze has raised five times as much money as she. He ain’t going to get five times as many votes. (Frietze has received more money just from Oscar Andrade and PicQuik Stores than Stewart’s total contribution amount for the primary.) He probably has ten times as many signs, and bigger ones. Again, nothing negative about Mr. Frietze; but Kim’s been a superb sheriff, reviving a department two previous sheriffs had decimated, and . . . it’s not so much that she deserves four more years, but that we ought to grab four more years of good management of DASO.  Frietz could be a good sheriff; but let's find out about that in 2026.]